“When does the show start?” I asked.
“It’s probably going to be a while,” Clayton told me. “They have one room for law enforcement witnesses and the victims’ families. That’s just going to be us tonight. There’s a second room for the family of the condemned and his lawyers. That’s going to be Ed Heffernan and some of his law students. Finally, there’s a third room where Carlos Watkins and the other media witnesses will observe. Corrections staff move everybody in and out separately. They don’t want the victims’ families running into the killer’s, and they don’t want the reporters to corner anyone who doesn’t want to talk to them. We don’t have any victims’ families here tonight, and Chester doesn’t have any family either, but the Department of Correction likes to stick pretty close to the rulebook for things like this.
“The last I heard, Mr. March had just been served his last meal. When he’s done with that, he’ll have an opportunity to pray with his pastor, and then they have to get the intravenous line into him. I will step out to observe them doing that, but you will have to wait in here. That can sometimes take a while, because it’s hard to find a good vein in some of these guys. Mr. March doesn’t have a history of drug use, which hopefully means that will go a little quicker. The junkies sometimes have collapsed veins, and that makes it very difficult to get an IV into them. But March is elderly, so that could make getting the line in tricky as well. If all that goes smoothly, the blinds might open in an hour and a half. If they have trouble with the IV, it could be longer. I’ve heard about a case where they spent hours trying to get a line into a guy—stuck him in his arms and his legs and his groin—and couldn’t get the IV in, and he was bleeding all over the place, and they had to call off the execution. That wasn’t in Tennessee, though. I think it was in Ohio.”
“So what you’re saying is we might be here all night?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Clayton said.
Rose sat down on one of the folding chairs. “I should have brought a magazine or something.”
“If I’d known this would take so long, I definitely would have gone for the hot chicken beforehand,” Tequila said. “Then, afterwards, we’d probably have been ready for round two.”
I shrugged. “Live and learn.”
TRANSCRIPT: AMERICAN JUSTICE
CARLOS WATKINS (NARRATION): The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Chester’s appeal. Governor Bill Haslam has rejected Chester’s plea for clemency. He released a short statement saying a jury decided Chester’s fate, and appellate courts upheld it, and it’s not his place to relitigate the matter or question their decision. I think it’s exactly the governor’s place to do that, since he has the power to grant clemency or to suspend capital punishment entirely in Tennessee. But he’s not willing to do it. I called his office and asked to interview him, but he doesn’t want to talk to me about this. At Riverbend, plans for the execution move forward.
I still can’t go in to see Chester, but he has access to a phone, and he called me with an update.
CHESTER MARCH: They’ve given me a white prison uniform. I’ve never seen one of these before. The uniforms are color coded, and white is just for being executed. It’s like this is my wedding day, and I’m the bride. On death row, we wore light green. The general population wears beige. So I feel very special right now.
They came in a while back and asked what I wanted to eat. On death row, the prisoners spend a lot of time talking about what they want for their last meal. I think we do that in part because the prison food is so bad, and in part just to pass the time. To tell the truth, even on death row, it didn’t really seem like we were actually going to get executed. For the first twenty-some years I was in here, Tennessee didn’t have a single execution. The first one was in the year 2000. They did it five more times in the last decade or so, as people’s appeals began to run out, but still, it’s so hard to wrap my mind around. Even now that it’s happening, I can’t believe it. Talking about last meals always seemed like kind of a joke.
I always thought I would get something lavish: steak and lobster, tins of caviar, bottles of champagne. But it turns out that the budget for a last meal is only twenty dollars, so it doesn’t look like I’m going to get to go out in style.
I think the best bet is to go with fast food, because if you ask for a steak or seafood, it is coming from the prison kitchen. Inmates do the cooking here, guys from the general population, so I don’t know them. I always had to eat in my cell. A guard would bring a tray and slide it through a slit in the door. I think if I asked those guys to cook my last meal, they’d probably do their best to make it a good one, but the food would still be coming from the vendor who supplies the prison kitchen. I could ask them for a rib eye or a filet mignon, but I’d probably get the same meat we get when they serve us “steaks” on Christmas. It’s a sandwich steak or some shitty cut that they call a steak, but isn’t really a steak. Like a Denver steak or an Omaha strip or a Toronto tip or some bullshit like that. It’s pretty good by prison standards, but it’s not the piece of meat you want for your last meal.
I asked them about lobster, and they said they couldn’t do that. Shrimp is as close as I can get. They told me they can do either a shrimp cocktail or fried shrimp. I don’t think I want to eat shrimp from the prison food vendor. Though I guess I don’t have to worry about getting food poisoning or diarrhea, do I? The real dream—the lottery ticket—is if you can get them to serve you your last meal and then you get a last-minute stay and they cancel your date and send you back to your cell. So maybe I’ll avoid the seafood, just in case that happens for me. Isn’t that pathetic? That my greatest hope is to get to eat a twenty-dollar dinner and then not have to die right afterwards?
There was a guy, Ronnie Lee Gardner, out in Utah, who got steak and a lobster tail and then they let him watch all the Lord of the Rings movies before they killed him. He also got to be executed by firing squad, which you can’t get in Tennessee. If you ever commit capital murder, I recommend doing it in Utah. The Mormons handle their executions real classy. I wonder if they will set up a TV in here and let me watch a movie if I ask. They might. The guards all seem to feel real bad about having to do this. But I don’t even know what I’d want to watch. I doubt I could pay attention to it right now.
I am going to ask for a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken with all the sides, a carton of Häagen-Dazs, and a Coke. I figure they can’t screw that up too bad, though I am sure the biscuits and mashed potatoes will be cold by the time they get them to me. Maybe they can reheat them.
CARLOS WATKINS (NARRATION): I wanted to send Chester a bottle of champagne to drink with his last meal, but the corrections staff said they wouldn’t take it back to him. I called Ed to see if he could intervene, and he told me that Chester can’t have any alcohol anyway, because it might interact with the sodium thiopental.
Outside the prison, there are about a hundred and fifty protesters. People always show up to demonstrate when there’s an execution, but Ed told me that this is an unusually large crowd.
Past the parking lot, a local pastor has set up a revival tent. In the tent, the faithful are praying for Chester, and also for Cecilia Tompkins, Margery March, and Evelyn Duhrer. I went out there and sat for a while. I’m not a religious person, but the atmosphere was loving, and it was a welcome escape from the deeply negative energy of the prison.
About 80 percent of the demonstrators seem to be opposed to the death penalty. The rest are here to jeer and celebrate Chester’s death. There’s one guy in a cowboy hat who loves executions and shows up to stand outside the prison for every one of them.
He likes to hold up a boom box when the execution begins, and he plays “Hell’s Bells” by AC/DC while the condemned prisoner dies. The building where the execution takes place is a couple hundred yards away, so nobody in there will be able to hear him, but I don’t think that’s the point. Anyway, I’m trying not to pass judgment. I don’t know what has happened to this guy in his life to make him want
to do this. I tried to ask him, but he stopped talking to me.
I’m starting to see cars being let in through the front gate, and I think these are witnesses arriving for the execution. A Buick pulled through a few minutes ago, and I am about 90 percent sure that William Schatz was driving it, which must mean Buck has arrived. I’ve called him several times since I spoke to William, and he hasn’t been picking up his phone.
I will be one of seven reporters who will witness this execution. Chester doesn’t have any family, so he offered to put me on his list of invited witnesses, but the American Justice team decided that, although our coverage of this event has an unambiguous editorial viewpoint, it was still a bridge too far, ethically, to attend the execution as Chester’s guest if we had an alternative. This is especially true since my objectivity and credibility have been the topic of a lot of the discussion surrounding this show since my interview with William Schatz aired.
The Department of Correction has a set of guidelines for media invitations, and it seems complicated, but it really isn’t. It also seems like a lottery among media outlets, but once again, it mostly isn’t. The seven witnesses are picked from six categories. The first spot goes to the Associated Press. The second spot goes to a news agency from the county where the murder occurred. The third goes to a Nashville print publication. This doesn’t necessarily have to be The Tennessean, but I think it always is. Then there is one spot for another Tennessee print publication, two spots for TV news, and one spot for radio. Journalists typically decide amongst themselves who gets the spots, and it’s customary to defer to local media from the city where the murder occurred. It only really becomes a lottery if a bunch of national media outlets want to witness the execution.
That happened in some of the categories this time. The popularity of American Justice has generated a lot of interest around this case, so CNN, Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC all wanted the two spots for TV reporters. The big winners were NBC and the Memphis Fox affiliate, which wouldn’t give its spot up for Fox News. Luckily—or perhaps unluckily if you’re looking for work in the field of radio journalism—there wasn’t as much competition to be the radio witness, and the outlets who were interested in covering the execution were all NPR affiliates who graciously stepped aside for me.
The main drawback of covering the execution from the media pool is that I won’t be with Ed Heffernan, and I won’t get to see firsthand how he reacts. There will be three separate rooms where different groups of witnesses observe the execution, and the media is separated from both victims’ families and law enforcement witnesses and the condemned’s family and his lawyers.
I also won’t be allowed to bring any recording devices into the building where the execution will occur, so unfortunately, you will not get to hear Chester’s last words or my live response to what I am seeing in the moment. I can have a pencil and a legal pad. I can’t even bring my own pencil. They’ll issue me one. Maybe somebody could conceal a camera or a recording device or some other kind of contraband in their pen or something. But the prison-issued pencil will be good enough to take notes with, and I’ll record my narrative of the event as soon as the execution is over, so it’s as fresh in my mind as possible.
This is going to be an emotionally trying experience for me. I’ve gotten to know Chester over the phone for the last couple of months. I will see him in person for the first time this evening, and then he will die. I know, as much as I don’t want to believe it, that he is probably a murderer. Knowing that really doesn’t make this easier.
I’m going inside now. I’ll have more to tell you after Chester March is dead.
26
Peter Clayton waited with us for an hour, and then a uniformed guard knocked on the door, and Clayton left with him.
It was probably good for William to get some quality time with his grandmother, but we’d all run out of stuff to say to each other on the car ride up. So we mostly sat in silence, waiting for something to happen. It’s surprising how boring it can be to sit and wait to watch somebody die. I think I dozed off a bit while I was in there.
After about forty-five minutes, Clayton returned.
“The IV is in,” he said. “They should be ready to get started any minute.”
I wheeled my chair closer to the window. The blinds opened to reveal Chester March, dressed in a clean white jumpsuit, lying on a gurney. The years had not been kind to him. What little was left of his hair was lank and yellow-white. His face was deeply creased, and his eyes had sunk deep into his skull. The only parts of him that looked the same were his porcelain dental implants. His arms were outstretched, like Jesus on the cross, and restrained. He also had restraints around his chest and his legs. A plastic tube ran from his right arm to a clear IV fluid bag, which hung above the gurney. To his left stood a man in a suit. To his right was another man, this one wearing scrubs and a surgical mask.
“The guy in the jacket is the warden,” Clayton told us. “The one in the mask is the executioner. He’s not a doctor. There is a doctor here, but he won’t participate in the execution. He won’t even go in the room where this is happening. He’ll come in afterwards, to declare the time of death.”
The executioner flipped a switch on the wall, and the intercom hissed a little.
“Do you have anything to say, Mr. March?” the warden asked.
Chester lifted his head up, and looked straight at me. “I’m a Christian,” he said. He hissed the s sound. “I’m right with God, and whatever I’ve done, He forgives me. I’m ready to face His judgment. But this? This is wrong. This is evil. This is so much worse than anything I ever did. Some of y’all are all right. I’ve been praying for you. I forgive you, and I think, if you let Him in your heart, Jesus will forgive you too. But some of you? What you’ve done, I don’t see how you’ll ever get square with the Lord. I fear for your souls, and I feel sorry for you.”
“Is that all?” the warden asked.
“Yeah,” Chester said. “I ain’t got all night here. Let’s give the people what they want!”
The warden nodded at the executioner, who injected a drug into Chester’s IV line.
“That’s sodium thiopental, the first of the three-drug cocktail,” Clayton said. “It’s a sedative. It should knock him out in less than thirty seconds.”
Chester laid his head back onto the gurney. The warden stepped forward and examined him. He snapped his fingers in front of Chester’s face. He bent over and shouted, “Chester! Chester! Can you hear me?”
“He’s making sure March is unconscious,” Clayton said. The warden seemed satisfied. He took a step back and gestured toward the executioner, who injected a second, and then a third needle into the IV line. “Now he’s administering the lethal drugs. March should stop breathing in a few minutes.”
But Chester’s breathing did not slow. Instead, over the next couple of minutes, it seemed to become more rapid. His arms tensed, and his fists clenched and unclenched. The skin around the spot where the IV was inserted into his right arm was turning red.
Next to me, Tequila had risen from his chair and stepped forward, so his face was inches from the glass. Behind me, Rose had her hands clenched in front of her, knuckles white, staring wide-eyed at Chester. Blisters were emerging on his hot red forearm, seeping pink fluid. Around the spot where the tube went into his arm, his skin had started to turn gray. His whole body was tense, and the cords of his neck stood out as he pulled against the restraints.
“Something is very wrong,” Clayton said. “He should be completely paralyzed. I have to stop this.” He rushed out of the room.
Chester lifted his head, and his eyes opened. “The fires of Hell!” he shouted. “Oh, God, why? It wasn’t supposed … It wasn’t supposed to hurt so bad!”
The skin on Chester’s arm tore loose and slid down to his wrist like the sleeve of a stretched-out sweatshirt, revealing the pale white flesh of his forearm. The fluid seeping from the injection site had left a pink puddle on the floor. The warden hit the button
on the wall. Chester sat partway up again, as far as his restraints would allow, his eyes bulging and his mouth wide, but the microphones were off and the chamber was otherwise soundproof. I watched him scream silently until the warden hit another button, and the blinds snapped closed.
I looked at Tequila, who still had his hand pressed over his mouth, and then at Rose, who was rocking back and forth in her chair.
“So, who’s up for hot chicken?” I asked.
“You know what?” Tequila said. “I could eat.”
TRANSCRIPT: AMERICAN JUSTICE
CARLOS WATKINS (NARRATION): By time I get this recorded, edited, and on the air, you’ll likely already have heard about what has happened at Riverbend from TV news or social media. The execution of Chester March was horribly botched, with gruesome results.
A few minutes after the procedure began, it became clear that the sedative, sodium thiopental, had not rendered Chester unconscious. He sat up on the gurney and began screaming. At that point, the executioner cut off the microphones and closed the blinds, leaving me and the other media witnesses in stunned silence. Here’s Ed Heffernan with a better explanation.
ED HEFFERNAN: As soon as it was apparent that Chester March had not been properly sedated, I left the witness room and ran to the death chamber to demand that the warden stop the execution. By that point, the executioner had already injected Chester with the vecuronium bromide and the potassium chloride. Chester was awake and was clearly in considerable distress, and the warden agreed to stop the execution and called upon the doctor in attendance to attempt to resuscitate Chester.
Unfortunately, it was too late. Chester March entered cardiac arrest after forty minutes of unimaginable agony and died an hour after the first part of the lethal injection was administered. While we won’t know for sure until we have a full autopsy, the most likely cause of this tragedy is something doctors call “infiltration.” The person who inserted the intravenous line pushed it through the wall of the vein, and as a result, the drugs were injected into the subcutaneous tissues of Chester’s arm instead of entering his bloodstream in quantities sufficient to ensure a quick death.
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